a falcon? a storm? a song?

am i a falcon? a storm? a song? (rilke)

it's difficult to quantify a month into a single post. on june 30, i stepped away from this space and allowed others to take over in order to share their moments of bravery. we heard about letting go of control, saying goodbye to relationships, traveling to a foreign country and what it's like for a waiting mama to hold her breath {and her heart}.

while these friends shared, i read. a lot. i napped in a hammock, the breeze through the leaves serving as a summer day lullaby. i rested in another hammock, watching a storm blow closer and closer - the lightning dancing across the sky. i bit the bullet and published some short fiction.

we adopted a dog.

i visited prudence and we hash tagged our way to san diego, where cool breeze and crashing waves waited for us.

i went to la for the first time and hugged the neck of a dear friend and swapped stories over lunch and witnessed the greats at the getty art museum. oh and, i saw diane keaton on santa monica pier, clad in a dog collar and sun glasses, laughing with a guy as if it was the most normal thing in the world for her to be there - right in the middle of everything else.

and here's a hint :: it absolutely is normal.

essentially, these past 31 days, i lived.

i welcomed a new decade of life and wrote over 10,000 words to my new manuscript, a novel that overwhelms me in all kinds of different ways from come alive.

most of all, i sat in the questions.

i've come to love rilke and his stubborn, wild love for those around him. he speaks truth into me when there's not much left i can hang on to, and this makes sense since growing up, i read more from the psalms than any other book in the bible.

poetry sings.

rilke, he understands the search. he knows that disguised since childhood, haphazardly assembled from voices and fears and little pleasures, we come of age as masks...

and for the past 31 days, more than the beach or the lake or the writing or the reading, i've come to realize the masks i've worn for so long have gotten so ill-fitting. i'm stripping them off, one by one, and finding the real Elora - the one He knit together in my mother's womb, before the hurt and confusion.

jeremiah 33:3 says He will tell us great, hidden things we haven't known. this describes my july. secret message after secret message, whispered in my ear in a language only He and i know, while He peels the layers of pride and anger and shame away from my wooden heart.